Wings
by ThePenguinofDeath
Summary: An angel's wings are sacred things, the only part of their grace which can ever be made visible to others. In effect, seeing an angel's wings is like seeing into someone's soul – and as such, the appearance of wings is a thing of the utmost importance in Heaven. One-shot.


**I basically wrote this because I have a strange fascination with angel's wings, so I decided to explore that. I do strange things to alleviate boredom...**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Supernatural or any of the characters. Unfortunately. **

An angel's wings are sacred things, the only part of their grace which can ever be made visible to others. In effect, seeing an angel's wings is like seeing into someone's soul – and as such, the appearance of wings is a thing of the utmost importance in Heaven.

After a fledgling angel has developed their wings, they are taken to the archangels where they must display them, and their wings will be graded. The grade of your wings determines how powerful an angel you are allowed to be. Fledglings sometimes spend months hiding their developed wings, pretending that they are not yet fully grown, just so that they can preen them and practise showing them off so that they will be seen in the best way possible. However, young angels are never told what the ideal appearance of wings is, to try and avoid them changing the look of their wings to conform to this image.

That doesn't mean that young angels have never seen a pair of developed wings. Gabriel, before he left Heaven, was always very fond of spending time with the fledglings – they were easy to play pranks on, or to persuade to play pranks on other angels. He also liked being the centre of attention, so enjoyed showing off his six wings in all their glory in front of the young ones. But displaying your true wings is a huge show of trust, so he tended to change aspects of them using his grace – he would colour them bright pink or blue, then dress in strange costumes with a matching fluffy halo and parade around like that. This even resulted in some young angels dyeing their wings before wing grading – which Gabriel found hilarious. Michael, on the other hand, was not so amused.

Naturally, all of the archangels had extremely impressive wings. Michael's were enormous – three pairs of huge, curved, white-feathered wings that could easily fill one of the massive halls of Heaven. The feathers themselves were elegantly pointed and looked absolutely beautiful, but the points were deadly, the sign of a strong warrior of God. In battle, the tips of Michael's wings would be coloured red with blood. Whenever anyone on Earth pictured an angel, it was Michael's wings that they would think of as the norm.

Lucifer's wings had also been white – in fact, they were almost exactly like Michael's in appearance, just slightly smaller. However, while they might be smaller they were also stronger, so their lack of size had never been an issue. After he was banished to Hell, Lucifer had been very careful to never let his wings become damaged or scorched, so they retained their pure white shine. It was strange how similar Michael and Lucifer could look in battle – sometimes it really was impossible to tell them apart.

Raphael's wings had caused something of a stir amongst the archangels. His wings were grey, and not a light grey either – a deep, dark, slate grey like a storm cloud, reflecting his turbulent personality. They were less elegant than Lucifer's and Michael's, and the ends were less pointed – but they were no less deadly when they were used in the correct way.

But Gabriel's wings were the finest. The youngest archangel, he had been expected to have wings like Raphael's, or perhaps even plainer than that. Underneath all the bright colours and strange designs though, were hidden a set of the most amazing wings any angel in Heaven had. They were gold – bright, shining, polished gold, like no angel had ever seen before. At first, the other archangels believed this colour was another of Gabriel's illusions, but no – his wings were truly the gorgeous colour of a precious metal. Whenever he went to Earth to carry his messages, Gabriel would have to turn his wings white, because their true colour was blinding to any mortal. That's how brightly his golden wings shone, just like a star in the sky.

Due to this variation amongst the archangels, there could be a certain amount of arguing when they were judging a fledgling's wings. Michael argued that as the two most powerful archangels had white wings, white was the most superior colour, and as his own wings were the largest, size equalled superiority. Raphael believed that wings which directly showed the personality of the individual were the best – Michael's were pure white, showing his unwavering loyalty to his father, whereas his own were grey to show his anger and turbulence. Gabriel's were gold to show he liked to be the centre of attention. Gabriel, on the other hand, believed that all wings should be viewed equally – he didn't understand why some should be considered better than others. If they worked, then they were fine. It wasn't like angels couldn't change their wing appearance anyway.

Some fledglings had extremely amusing wing grading sessions. Balthazar, who had almost been like Gabriel's apprentice as a youngster, turned up looking extremely sheepish, before being forced to explain that he had been experimenting with a few tricks involving fire when he had accidentally singed his own wings. The other archangels had been about to rank him as the lowest possible angel, when Gabriel had caught Balthazar's eyes and burst out laughing, explaining that his wings weren't actually singed – he had dyed his wingtips black for a dare and couldn't work out how to get rid of it. Annoyed, Michael had attempted to get rid of the colour on Balthazar's wings, only to discover that every time he did so, they would simply change colour, turning particularly vibrant shades of purple and orange. This had gone on for a while, before both Michael and Raphael forcibly pinned down Gabriel and insisted that he stop messing around and allow wing grading to happen. Gabriel had sighed, clicked his fingers and Balthazar's wings had returned to a normal, honey brown colour. He had ended up being quite a high-ranking angel indeed (at Gabriel's insistence).

The strangest wing grading session though had to be Castiel's. Castiel had always been a strange angel – as a fledgling, he had been fascinated by the strangest things, and always seemed a little detached from the world around him. He had been extremely slow to develop, and some angels had joked that he would never develop wings at all, but eventually Castiel claimed that he was ready to be graded. Everyone had wondered what his wings would turn out to be like – plain and grey? Coloured and wacky? Strangely small or deformed? In reality, they weren't really any of these things.

Castiel hadn't attempted any kind of display, like most people. Instead, he simply stood there, quite calmly, and unfolded his wings with no real ceremony at all. He didn't need to make a statement. His wings did that for him.

Unlike most angels, he didn't have wings of just one colour. They were mainly grey, but there were streaks of beautiful, sapphire blue running through them in waves, almost like the ocean. In places, feathers stuck out at slight angles, but that didn't detract from the eerie beauty that his wings held. Castiel never spoke, he just stood there while the archangels surveyed his wings in confusion and wonder, seemingly uncaring about what the outcome was.

However, when Michael attempted to touch Castiel's wings, they suddenly snapped out of view, and Castiel looked at him and simply said,

"No."

No-one had ever refused to allow their wings to be touched during grading before.

Castiel's attitude seemed to irritate Michael and Raphael – angels were obedient, they never said no to an order from a superior – but naturally, Gabriel liked this spark of attitude, so he argued until they allowed Castiel to serve as a seraph under Anael. That was one of the reasons why Gabriel wasn't allowed back into Heaven after he left – the angels he fought for, like Castiel and Balthazar, tended to be the ones who would disobey Heaven's orders. It was almost like Gabriel wanted to incite rebellion. Even back then, when the issue of God being missing wasn't prevalent, perhaps he was.

When Metatron took Castiel's grace from him, he lost everything. His wings slowly burnt away over a period of several weeks, causing excruciating pain and leaving twin, jagged scars down his now mostly-human back, the only signs of his previous angelic might. Should Castiel get his grace back again, his wings would regrow from these points, but he didn't expect that that would ever happen.

Besides, in his eyes, wings were rather overrated objects anyway.

**Thoughts? If anyone else has any opinions as to what each angel's wings would be like, please mention them in a review!**


End file.
